Flathead Land Trust Secures New Easement on Stillwater River
With multi-generational roots, the Rooney family placed a 57-acre conservation easement on their property, permanently barring subdivision and development
By Tristan Scott
A family whose roots in the Flathead Valley stretch back three generations has permanently protected 57 acres of riverfront land along the Stillwater River west of Whitefish, adding another piece to a growing network of conserved habitat in the valley.
Sean and Melodye Rooney worked with Flathead Land Trust to place a conservation easement on the property, which includes nearly a mile of Stillwater River frontage and borders two existing Flathead Land Trust easements, as well as U.S. Forest Service and Stillwater State Forest land. The agreement permanently bars subdivision and development on the tract, which mixes riparian forest, shrubland and wetlands with more than 20 acres of hay ground still in agricultural production.
The family’s tie to the valley goes back to Sean Rooney’s grandfather, who homesteaded near Cut Bank before working for the Great Northern Railway in Whitefish. Sean’s father later traveled internationally before settling permanently in the Flathead Valley, where he taught English and geology at Flathead Valley Community College. Sean and Melodye bought the land alongside his parents in 2003, later acquiring full ownership, and now live on the property year-round.
For the Rooneys, the decision to conserve the land grew out of years spent watching what moved through it. “Our family and friends have been fortunate to enjoy and learn from the wildlife and nature on our property, and we are pleased to know that this piece of the Stillwater River corridor will be protected from development through Flathead Land Trust,” Melodye Rooney said in a press release announcing the easement.
For the Flathead Land Trust, that wildlife value was apparent from the start. On his first visit to the property, Flathead Land Trust’s Ryan Hunter watched a bear swim across the Stillwater River just below the Rooneys’ house.
The family has since turned that kind of encounter into data. The property serves as an official study site for Snapshot USA, a nationwide mammal survey run annually by the Smithsonian Institution, and the Rooneys’ daughter, Brigit, coordinates the program. Setting camera traps on the land has documented grizzly and black bears, mountain lions, gray wolves, moose, river otters and bald eagles passing through — sometimes in close succession. Brigit has recalled pulling a memory card to find a photo of herself walking the property, followed eight minutes later by a mountain lion on the same trail.
In 2025, the family began a habitat enhancement project to restore a ponded area and its surrounding wetland, adding to work they’d already been doing to track and support the land’s ecology.
Beyond wildlife habitat, the property’s river frontage and wetlands help protect water quality in the Stillwater River, which supports bull trout and westslope cutthroat trout. Flathead Land Trust says the new easement strengthens an interconnected corridor of protected land along the river and Highway 93, keeping the working landscape — hay fields included — intact alongside the habitat.